The book of Nina von Rönne

 

Information in Nina von Rönne's book, about her stay with tour guide F. and his family in a jungle finca in 2015. "Ne t'en fais pas, nous sommes amis..."(Don't worry, we are friends...)

Nina von Rönne and her boyfriend Andy were guide F's direct neighbours and friends throughout the second part of 2015 and the start of 2016. Nina already spoke with journalist Jeremy Kryt back in 2016 about her bad experiences with her host, who had anger outbursts and could switch in temper. I covered her statements to him in that regard already on this blog (here). Now she published her travel diaries in book form. It covers the trip she and her partner took to Panama in the year after Kris and Lisanne went missing. I speak French myself and bought and read her book (of which it is claimed that 55% of sales goes directly towards the purchase of a forest), and I will now give you the main summary of her experiences in Boquete. I will obviously not cover every book detail, so feel free to purchase it for yourself: it is a very interesting and personal story which I enjoyed reading and which reads like a personal and honest travel diary. Nina also makes many funny and to the point observations about the people and habits around her. For those who don't speak French and can't read this book for themselves, here comes the summary.  

Nina von Rönne is a classical, cool beauty with dark blonde hair and green eyes. She has dual French and German nationality and is a photographer who also models, makes art and who sometimes does other odd jobs to make ends meet. This allows her to enjoy a more free and creative lifestyle. At the start of this book she describes how she met her current partner, who she calls Andy, at a party. He is an engineer from Bretagne (Brittany), a rugged province in the northwest of France, and an avid traveler and explorer. Nina is originally from Guadeloupe, a tropical island in the southern Caribbean Sea, south-east of Puerto Rico, that belongs to France. She was born and grew up on this Antillean island, until she moved to Paris for her studies. She describes her fierce independence and love of adventures, which she shares with Andy. 

Panama
In the spring of 2015 the pair decide to pack up and explore the possibility of continuing their life in Central America. Nina is 30 years old then. They pre-select seven countries and Panama is among these countries. Nina writes how she is filled with hope when she says goodbye to her loved ones at a Paris airport, but also has a knot of doubt and fear in her stomach. Nina and Andy first fly to Panama. They soon after drive to the southern border of Mexico, exploring several countries in this part of Latin America for three months straight. They have a tight budget and Nina makes beautiful drawings of their adventures, while Andy tries to surf when possible. He speaks fluent Spanish. From her writings it shows that the couple is very much in love and enjoying nature and each other. They also sound like relaxed and observant travelers. When they detect signs of large wild cats in the sand after a night of 'wild sleeping' in hammocks at the coast, Nina finds it 'cool' and remarks that it is very normal for these native felines to sniff at the strange but harmless intruders in their territory. Nina seems to have her heart in the right place and writes with indignation about locals poaching baby turtle eggs, about plastic washing all over the beaches and the destruction of natural forests in favour of oil palm trees. After months of traveling around the Latin America territory, they come to the conclusion that they are most attracted to Panama, with its nice cuisine and friendly people. The couple is thinking about setting up a restaurant specialized in a specific Breton dish: a type of pancakes (crêpe bretonne). They not only like Boquete's nature, but also reckon that the many American expats make it a place with enough potential of paying customers. Nina writes: "Panama is a politically stable country, so not dangerous, with the lowest crime rate of all the countries in the region". The couple shortly return to France for a family celebration. Nina describes some tensions with Andy's mother and her high expectations for her son. Their plans to start a pancake restaurant in Panama does not charm everyone in the family, but the couple themselves return to Panama on September 29th of 2015 with lots of plans and enthusiasm. Nina has even given away all her winter clothes, which she never expects to have to wear again. 

Boquete
In Boquete the couple soon start to house hunt for a place to rent and where they can set up their crêperie. Nina describes Boquete as charming and green and as one of the most touristic towns in Panama. It is the agricultural attic of Panama, Nina writes, with its cooler temperatures and it's sun and humidity. She also describes how the climatic conditions in Boquete are perfect for coffee farming and that the coffee there is among the best in the world. A 'finca' is a property here, she explains. Nina describes how both she and Andy fell ill when first being up in the mountains around Boquete. She was vomiting and he was not feeling right either. They think their symptoms match with 'mountain sickness'. But Nina is surprised about this because they are only at a height of 1800 meters, and she has been trekking through 4000 meter high mountains in Peru without a problem in the past. They meet guide F., who she calls Diego in the book, on October 8th of 2015. They sit in a hostel (she calls it 'Saphir') when they see guide F. there with a female Spanish tourist. He acted a bit strange, Nina writes. Very energized and clearly present. Andy is reserved and ignores him, but because they don't know many people in Boquete yet, Nina starts chatting with him. She finds out that he has just taken the 30-something solo female tourist to the Baru volcano. Guide F. tells Nina proudly that he regularly takes tourists there on nightly tours, while carrying torchlights. They then arrive at the Baru summit when the sun comes up. He tells her also about a 3-day tour he will do the next day, taking tourists through the forest by old native trails to the town of 'El Castillo', at the Caribbean coast [I wonder if this is another name for Bocas, perhaps, although Power-Pixie was brilliant again and found this place, which may just be it]. Despite his age, guide F. seems to know the many trails and corners of the surrounding mountains very well, Nina writes. She is interested in such a hike and when she tells him that they are looking for a place to rent, guide F. wants to help them and they exchange phone numbers. Three days later he calls Nina and Andy and offers them the house of his sister Carla. 

Living with the family of guide F.

Nina describes how they first visit guide F's place and she describes how they arrive there after driving for approximately three kilometers over winding roads that are difficult to navigate, into the mountains. She describes how his house has a coffee plantation right at the foot of it, which he inherited from his father. He owns more terrain with coffee plants. His place has magnificent views on the jungle and the Caribbean Sea in the distance. She describes that guide F. is married to 'Angelica' and has three adopted children; two girls and a boy. He has multiple brothers and sisters (one brother owns a mini-market shop) and both his parents are still alive. The family have multiple houses right next to each other in the mountains. 'Carla' is only in her house, situated close to guide F's place, during the weekends as she works in a car parts shop in David during the week. Nina and Andy agree with Carla to rent part of the house for seven months. It lies next to the house where guide F's parents and youngest sister live. Guide F. has multiple houses in the region and isn't always at the house he shares here with Angelica and her kids. F. is very enthusiastic about his new 'neighbours' and jokes with Nina that he will teach her Spanish if she practices German with him. The couple love the house with its garden, small river and beautiful views on the village and plantations. They have a room for themselves and plan to use the other room to house family or friends when they want to visit, or rent it out to tourists as an Airbnb. Guide F. has five cats and four dogs by then, two of which are skinny and attached to chains of only two meters long. In his house, F. keeps the preserved coat of a black panther. In Boquete, Nina and Andy visit the thermal hot springs at Caldera every week. They are on private property and the owner charges them $2 every time. There are three basins with water at around 40 degrees Celsius, with the river close by.

Guide F. and his female tourists
Ni na describes how guide F. is very touchy with her, to her displeasure. But she remembers that the people in Guadeloupe are more touchy also than the good people of Paris, and thus she may just have grown out of the habit. At the same time, she notices that F. becomes more distant towards Andy over time. F. left school at an early age to help his father work the coffee plantations. But now these coffee plantations don't make him enough money. Because he receives promotion as tour guide in multiple travel guidebooks that are published in Europe, tourists tend to come by his house straight away, without interference from a tour organization. That way he does not have to pay them a portion of his earnings, he explains. His son sometimes helps him with the tours. Guide F. speaks decent English, a bit of German and some Dutch. He loves the tour work and Nina writes that over time they noticed and understood from F. that he only works with European tourists and sometimes Canadian ones. For some reason he has a preference for Dutch, German and northern/eastern European clients. He even traveled over to Europe to meet some of the people he got to know as clients in Panama. He tells her that Americans in his experience are always looking for a bargain and are arrogant. His clientele in particular consists of "young, sporty (northern) European women who travel solo, and sometimes couples". Nina and Andy never see him venture off with only male tourists. When Andy speaks out this observation during a visit of guide F. one morning, he responds with big shiny eyes: "Yes, many beautiful women". He writes down all the details of his tourists in a pink notebook. [Power-Pixie wrote in that respect to me: "I wonder what clues we could have received from his notes about his whereabouts for March 31 and April 1? I wonder if he noted down Kris and Lisanne in there somewhere for their Volcan Baru tour?"] Sometimes F. also asks them if they know whether or not a name is male or female, while going through his work emails. He does not like to host male tourists. Nina gets along well with guide F. at this point and goes round to chat with him now and then, when Andy is busy on his computer. She describes guide F. as approximately 1.65 m. in height and slim but strong as an ox. "I have seen him carry super heavy bags of coffee beans and bags with fruit from his garden, as if they weighed nothing. He is a real force of nature. He is capable of walking very fast and for long times through the mountains without getting tired." In November of 2015, Nina and Andy see F. with a Czech young, pretty woman who travels through Latin America alone and who spent four days and nights with F. They notice the two flirting with one another and suspect they have an affair of sorts, due to the glances and their closeness. Guide F. takes her on multiple long tours and to the hot springs. Since F. charges $120 for a whole day of hiking, Nina and Andy wonder in jest if the Czech young woman perhaps pays her host with her body, so to speak. When Andy and Nina sit together with guide F. and the Czech woman, they notice that F. only has a few packages of biscuits and some soup packages in his kitchen. When they ask if that is really all he eats, F. says that on his mountain tours he finds plenty of fruits to keep him going. The jungle there is full of food, basically. Nina is positive about F. still and is touched when he calls them when they are at the coast for several days, to ask if they had any friends among the victims of the November 13th terrorist attacks in Paris that have just taken place then. Nina sees F. almost daily as they live so close by and she notices that F's attitude differs depending on the presence or absence of Andy. "No te preocupes, somos amigos," he often tells her. "Don't worry, we are friends". Nina calls guide F's mother 'Maria' and says that they get along and that she finds Maria a real firecracker, character wise. She also describes the stepson of the guide (H.) as a "force of nature", who shouts at neighbours and has moments of rage. During one incident H. "rages at a neighbour about something that happened with a dog. He is really fired up by rage and even picks up a long sharp machete from the house to make death threats at the neighbour. I am afraid. Guide F. seems annoyed by his son's behaviour and does not know what to do in order to calm him down. It was a very bizarre atmosphere where family secrets and the unspoken reigned." 

Guide F. becomes touchy
The couple start to feel watched by guide F., who drops by more and more often, even when they are just up and enjoying their breakfast. When Nina has some pains, F. takes her to a local doctor who insists on giving her a hydration infusion and guide F. stays by her side, even when Nina lies on the treatment table in her bra and knickers. It makes her feel uncomfortable. And when Andy goes away for some days to surf at the coast and Nina stays in the house with the guests, guide F. suddenly shows up late in the evening. She describes him as a panther by now, who prowls around silently, approaching unnoticed. He stares at her also and looks her body up, head to toe, in an uncomfortable manner, she writes. The next day she is all alone in the house as the guests are leaving, and she notices that guide F. is very touchy with her and seems excited to see her. He even lifts Nina up playfully to see 'how much she weighs'. Nina does not like this type of physicality. Guide F. had a night hike planned with two tourists that night, but cancelled it due to nonexistent "bad weather". When he told her this, he looked at Nina and grinned. When she tells him she will spend the evening elsewhere with some French people, he reacts strangely and looks at her like a beaten puppy. Nina is seriously frightened that night, when sleeping in the house alone. She locks every window and door and has a terrible fear, for unknown reasons. 

Difficulty to start a business
Meanwhile a local entrepreneur and manager of the artisan market in Boquete, 'Paulo', offers to help them find a place for their crêperie, but his offer is humiliating and entails a tiny spot for $300 a month. On top of this, they have to hire his German girlfriend because she is short on money. 'Quel culot!' ('What a nerve!'). They need to keep looking for a business location. Soon after they meet a certain Isabella, who has a good stand at the artisan market and who likes to share it with the couple. They later find out that Paulo does not agree with this set-up and charges Nina at least twice as much for her own stand. She is furious. It turns out to be not that easy to start a restaurant in Boquete, from scratch and without connections. They refocus on a coastal town, Torio, and look for land to buy there. 

Things go wrong

The couple adopt a 4-month-old brown dog called Billy. A real sweetheart, who they bond with instantly. Relations sour when guide F's sister finds out that Andy and Nina have hosted foreign tourists in the second room they rent. They do it for some extra income and have informed F. about it, who said he wouldn't share it with his sister. When they return from a short holiday at the coast, in the first week of January 2016, they find the house they rent from F's sister locked up with a chain. Carla is angry and when they have a talk with her and her family, the couple is told that they have to leave. This is despite an (oral) agreement that they can stay until May of 2016. Carla is angry about Nina and Andy's Airbnb advertisement and has also informed the police that they smoked some recreational marijuana occasionally. The family even went through all their belongings during their absence, to look for more evidence of this. Nina admits that they could have handled things more straightforward themselves with the room renting, but is otherwise very indignant. Things escalate and the couple is only allowed to leave the house after paying the rent of that month right there and then. They are kicked out of the house basically, and guide F. seems embarrassed about the whole thing and offers the couple a room in his own house. Nina writes that guide F., their friend, was the only person they openly told that the tourist couple they temporarily housed were Airbnb guests and not just friends or family. He was also the only one who knew that they smoked some herbs now and then. He had promised them not to say anything to his sister. He said he was not on good terms with his sister. So how come she knew these things, which they only entrusted guide F. with? Nina and Andy feel that their good friend has betrayed them. 

Guide F's two faces

When staying in his house, again Nina finds F. staring at her with a strange piercing look and she gets bad vibes from it and feels fearful. To make matters even worse, dog Billie has developed a mysterious illness and is vomiting. They see a vet, but none of the treatments seem to work and Billy keeps vomiting and grows weak and skinny. Nina and Andy are extremely worried and eventually Billy dies, after only having been with Nina and Andy for several weeks. The couple is heartbroken and start to wonder where all this bad luck is coming from. Their car also breaks down. Nina describes that guide F. and his wife are not divorced, but don't seem very close either and that F. is the boss in the house, while she appears subdued and even sad at times. They like Angelica, and Nina writes that she is about 50 years old and cleans the houses of Americans for money. Angelica confides in Andy at some point and tells him that guide F. has two faces. "One part of his personality is very agreeable and friendly, but he also has another side to him, one of a true demon who needs multiple sexual encounters a day." The sad wife says that he loves women so much that he visits prostitutes in David, but also has multiple relationships with women at the same time. Most of the money he earns is spent on women, not on his family. He even stayed in Europe for some time, to follow one of the female tourists he met during her visits to his plantations and their mountain treks. Meanwhile the house is crumbling and Angelica doesn't even have hot running water. Instead, she needs to collect rainwater in order to wash herself. This, while guide F. has many clients and charges up to $100 for a couple to spend two hours on his coffee plantations for a coffee tour. He has a strange way around women and Nina believes that he asked them whether or not potential clients had female names or not, because F. is obsessively preoccupied with women. He takes these women often to his family house for a stay over, before taking them into the mountains for hikes. Angelica also talks to Andy about the Czech woman he entertained for four days, and about her suspicions that they had an affair as well. Angelica says she feels belittled by guide F. and feels very bad about him mostly entertaining beautiful young athletic European tourists, away from her. While she is just 'an ugly cleaning lady', she feels. The couple feel very sad for Angelica, who is stuck and unable to divorce as that would be expensive and she has barely any money, nor another place to go. She is also ill and doctors seem unable to help. Only a shamanic therapist, a brujo, brought her some relief. But the shaman also told her that her husband was the source of her pains and that he had the effect of black magic, basically. This contrasts with the image which guide F. tries to create of himself; that of a trusted mountain guide and a loyal family man. Guide F. also has lands and animals deep in the mountains, which he uses as a refuge for tourists during his infamous three-day-long hikes to the coast. But he always refuses to show them. This is the Alto Romero finca. [Scarlet; not long after all this, F's wife died].

They weren't like those idiotic Dutch women
Shortly after a group of tourists gets lost in the mountains near Boquete, guide F. tells Nina and Andy with a grin on his face that they were lucky to have been found again. "It's not like with those idiot Dutch women", he adds snarky. Nina knows barely anything about the missing Dutch girls, other than having seen some news items in passing on the television at the time about their disappearance. She finds guide F's comment very strange. There is still a poster up, somewhere in Boquete, with Kris and Lisanne's faces on it. Soon after Billy dies, the couple say their goodbyes to guide F. and Angelica and move away from Boquete, to the coastal place of Torio. Nina keeps thinking about guide F. and what his wife told Andy about him, as well as about what F. said to Nina about the Dutch girls. They start to google where F's jungle finca may be and also google more information about the case of Kris and Lisanne. The girls strike Nina as very beautiful, both typically Northern European looking with "a look of femme fatales who only just recently discovered life". Nina has doubts about the official verdict at the time; that they were attacked and killed by wild animals. She does not believe that the backpack could then have turned up as relatively clean and dry as it did, containing all the girls' belongings. Not after three months of tropical downpour. Nina also does not believe that the foot of Lisanne could have been found as intact as it was after three months out there. Nina recalls an interesting event from Guadeloupe, which has a similar climate. A guy in her mother's hiking group once killed a snake by smashing its head on a rock. He left the snake body on a stone and within one hour, the entire snake was eaten away by a colony of ants. Typical tropical ants.. She therefore has some question marks about the body parts of Kris and Lisanne surviving for that long in a tropical forest. She also knows that the Pianista trail is among the most frequently hiked tourist trails in the area. Had they kept walking after the Mirador, they would have reached the coast in two days' time. Nina recalls that guide F. hikes this trail at times with his tourists, and always uses his green 4x4 Nissan to transport them to the start of the trail. "Because it takes almost two hours of walking to get there from the center of Boquete, and it is complicated to take the minibus that drives there. It is mainly used by locals and always full". Nina first understands from online information, that the girls were supposed to meet their guide at the start of the trail of Los Quetzales (later debunked info) and she wonders: "How was Diego able to find himself at the rendezvous of the trailhead without having his tourists in the car?" For all the many months they lived next to him, they always saw him being extremely organized. He never asked his tourists to meet them at the trailhead. Nina writes that in the tropics, the sun sets between 17:00 and 18:00 PM and that Kris and Lisanne would therefore have been careful not to return too late. She speaks out against people who try to turn Kris and Lisanne into two idiots who didn't know how the world works. 'We have nature and mountains in Europe too, you know'. She also dismisses the wild animal theory, as she knows from experience that in these regions, wild animals tend to hide from humans, not provoke them near a busy town. She also does not buy the theory that Kris and Lisanne would have both slipped and fell to their deaths. The belongings should have shown much more serious damage trails then. The same applies in her view to drowning; two strong young tourists don't both drown in a shallow river, while hiking. And if one was trying to save the other from drowning, she wouldn't have just thrown herself in the river as well. And the phosphate remnants found on some of the bones gives Andy the shivers, as he has experience working in the agricultural industrial sector, and knows what phosphates are used for.

He also knows how corrosive the product is and how it can destroy traces upon contact. They know that plantation owners in Boquete buy phosphates and have seen 25 kg bags of phosphates at guide F's place. Nina wonders why guide F. was so involved in this case in the early days. He notified the police and spent days alone searching for the girls, before the official searches took off. This surprises her, as she always saw him being very busy with tourists, asking quite a bit of money for his time. Why was he so invested in this disappearance of two girls he never met? Why look for them all by himself? How come he was the only one who correctly predicted where the girls had gone and where their remains were in effect also found? How come they ventured in the direction of Alto Romero anyway, a route mainly hiked by guide F. with his clients and which wouldn't have been known by the girls. Why wasn't he questioned about it all? And why wasn't it verified what he was up to, on the day of the disappearance of Kris and Lisanne? How come he was the one to tell the press that the girls were killed by wild animals and that they should leave the place, as there was nothing more to see there? He had tours planned with Kris and Lisanne, among which a coffee tour, at his plantation. Nina suspects that guide F. may have been with the girls on the day of their disappearance, leading them on the same unknown road to Alto Romero which he took her and two other tourists, when Andy was away surfing. She wonders fearfully if things could have ended badly for herself, if those two Canadians hadn't been there as well. Nina theorizes that guide F. may have locked the girls in one of his unregistered sheds, gone back to Boquete himself to raise the alarm and then sent the search troops effectively in the opposite direction. She believes that he has kept them as his prisoner for up to a week, sexually violating them, before killing them. The cut up body parts he then dispersed. Nina is very upset by this realization and feels she and Andy have escaped the clutches of a monster, while they stayed with guide F. and his family. Although, I must add, they haven't provided solid, direct evidence for this conclusion. But they know it to be true themselves, based on their experience and feelings. Of course, I instead would like forensic hard evidence or an admission of guilt ideally, to cement this theory and convince even the naysayers out there. But Nina feels that she has to warn other women, potential future clients of guide F. Because it may happen again. 

What if
Then the couple start to daydream about killing the guide with a poisoned pancake, in order to punish him for his arrogance and to save the lives of his future victims. A striptease and a ricin-laced pancake. "Don't worry, we are friends..." I'd personally want hard evidence of someone's guilt before contemplating things, even as a daydream. But they have no trust whatsoever in the local justice system, and with good reason I'd say, as the entire investigation of the Kris and Lisanne case was a forensic sh*tshow. But perhaps this is where the book simply takes a literary turn, to make it sound like a possible double crimi. Nina sincerely believes that if Andy hadn't been there, she would surely have ended up violated and cut into pieces and strewn around the forests of Boquete. They decide to ask for the help of a shaman, a brujo, 'Santo Herrera', of about 80 years old. They show him photos of Billy, of Kris and Lisanne and also a photo of guide F. When seeing F's photo, Santo Herrera instantly exclaims "el matador", and "muerta" (the killer, death). He also states that guide F. killed both Kris and Lisanne. On top of that, he says that F. killed four more girls in the past, so six in total. Death was circulating in the houses of guide F. and his family, and death takes the weakest link, which in this case was poor fluffy Billy. Had the dog not been there, death could have taken one of them, Nina and Andy. - Perhaps this is a superstition, but I just tell you here what's in the book -. Santo Herrera tells them also not to go back to Boquete under any circumstances. When the couple ask him to visualize the jungle finca of guide F., Santo Herrera describes the sight of a river, with tropical forest and mountains around [Scarlet; we know from the case files that the backpack was found right on the doorstep so to speak of F's finca, near the river, so this may be a correct visualization]. Nina believes that their experiences with guide F. were meant to be and that they have a duty to reveal his 'Machiavellian intentions. 

The military
In Torio luck isn't on their side either and they struggle to find an affordable plot of land for their crêperie slash surf school. The places they like are too expensive. They also still miss Billy very much. In the capital, amid one modern expensive commercial center after another and surrounded by the haves and the have nots, they start to miss Europe and France with its culture and (culinary) lifestyle. In the end they return to France and settle back in Bretagne. She calls the Dutch embassy in Paris in February of 2016, to tell them that she believes they have stayed with the murderer of Kris and Lisanne. The employee on the phone does not take her seriously. Nina feels that she isn't even given the benefit of the doubt. Then there is a very interesting but also peculiar story, revolving around one of her best friends, an older man in a high military position, who she kept up to date about the whole saga. Nina claims that he has sent a couple of military people from the base in French Guiana to Boquete, to look into guide F. And that they turned his backstory inside out and concluded that "Yes, guide F. did kill these women, together with his son (H.). They gently persuaded them, took them alone throughout the mountains under the pretext of a [three day] hike with them. Then, far from everyone and everything, they held them in their shed, violated them, then killed them and cut them up." Her military friend explains to her that the European Union does not have the right to military intervene in this geographic zone. But the Americans who are present in the region will try to take care of it. Of course, without official confirmation of this unofficial operation, it remains open to skepticism. And going by his social media, guide F. is still very active as a tour guide as I write this, on November 11th of 2021. In the summer of 2016 they discover the work of Jeremy Kryt [often quoted here on my blog], who was interested to hear Nina and Andy's stories and who covered some of their experiences in his articles on this case. Nina is happy that they could have meant something, somehow, to this case. She still believes that people should be warned about the dangers in Boquete. Not just in terms of the large drug traffic operations that take place in this country, as a 'super cop' she chatted with one day told her. "I would like so much that women realize that the world is not just beautiful and nice. Traveling also sometimes means to put one's trust in people whose intentions aren't always pure and whose culture we ignore." Nina and Andy buy a house near the sea and have a garden, a dog and a cat. She no longer drinks coffee that is imported from Panama.

***************

**So... I can already clearly imagine what sort of cynical comments may come from certain people who follow this case. I'm sure there will be a group of people who will dismiss everything Nina wrote as make-belief, superstition and subjective suspicions. As I commented already here and there, I found no solid forensic evidence for the guide's involvement in the deaths of Kris and Lisanne, but I did find this book very interesting to read. It is likely that none of us have her experience, staying with this tour guide for many months, feeling the object of his affection and hearing from his wife what his 'other side' is like. I believe that Nina was most certainly afraid. The manner in which the couple was treated at times in Boquete was a bit shocking to me; not just by F's sister and her family, but also by people like 'Paulo', trying to squeeze money out of them. Nina also witnessed the guide's son go ballistic, which shows us a little new peek into his behaviour. We also learnt more about guide F's habits around his (mostly) female tourists, which seem to match with what others in Boquete have declared, or warned their own tourists about. Nina seems to have strong intuition and a sensitivity for the nature of people around her, and as such I feel that her personal diaries are a good source of additional information. Jeremy Kryt seems to have thought the same, as he covered some of Nina's findings in his own Daily Beast articles. I am honestly not sure if there really was a military unit that went to Boquete. But there have been more people with a professional military background who have claimed this to Juan for instance (they went looking for the girls alive, at the time, by their own initiative) and who also provided background information for this. I do not know if this tour guide and his son are really the actual culprits, but Nina certainly strongly believes so. Of course everyone was duped by the highly underwhelming Panamese investigation, back in 2014: Betzaida Pittí should have turned this guide inside out, verified his whereabouts, his phone locations, his internet searches, his alibi and forensically checked all his properties and lands. He should have been the prime suspect, due to his prominent role (had a tour booked with them and then another one that week; went into their bedroom by his own initiative and without the police; reported them missing; went out looking for them alone, despite being told not to; their backpack and he found most of their remains; the backpack was found by an aide of his and he handled it before the police received it; he has given contradicting statements to the press). Most of all, guide F. himself was not served well by this über-shoddy police work, as he ultimately wasn't cleared of any involvement either. So impressions like the ones from Nina von Rönne have a place in this case investigation. We also should keep in mind that almost none of us, case followers, had ever visited Boquete, let alone met the tour guide, let alone spent so much time in his presence, or feeling the object of his obsession. 

This is an independent review, I do not know the author personally and I bought the book myself. Although I am not that fond of video making, I will make a video on YouTube about this review nevertheless, because I found that scores of youtubers steal whatever they can get their hands on, including my own videos there and my blog content. Unfortunately often without providing any source mentioning. Please read the book yourselves and make your own analysis, youtubers 😉

Comments
Power-Pixie wrote: "Since F. charged $120 for a whole day of hiking, Half a day would be $60 a piece if Lisanne and Kris were offered that option. "This, while guide F. has many clients and charges up to $100 for a couple to spend two hours on his coffee plantations for a coffee tour" - So that's another $50 a piece for Kris and Lisanne supposed tour, plus tips, and a bag of coffee beans, if they decided on buying or were coerced to buy, would come out to something like $65 each. And they found $83 in the backpack?"

Me: "Yes I was a little bit baffled by those prices at the time as well. Especially a 3-day hike to the coast would be very expensive, but the coffee tour as well. I wonder why, perhaps because a lot of coffee is tasted then? It cannot be equally tiring for F. as for instance a day of mountain hiking. Either way, since it would have cost the girls a bit of money for sure, why would they have wanted to book more than one tour at a time? First see how good the guide is, before agreeing to pay even more? Because it sounds pretty expensive to have also a coffee tour booked, as well as the Baru nightly walk.. I think the coffee farm doesn't make as much money in terms of the coffee production, because the farming and harvesting costs money too and Nina described that he had locals employed for all the hard work. Overall, he made more money with his tour guide activities." 

Power-Pixie wrote: "The jungle there is full of food, basically" - While this might be true, one still needs to know what kinds of food to eat that will be safe. Do we know what fruits grow in that area where Kris and Lisanne disappeared? Here is an interesting paper on the study of plants by James Miller, you will find a section on his hike on the Pianista trail as well as others, describing the flora and fruits that can be eaten. No way Lisanne and Kris starved to death. They could have easily picked the fruit that grew in abundance. Could they have gotten sick from unwashed fruit, yes, maybe."

Me: "Food wise there are a lot of avocados there in the area, from what I understand, and citrus fruits too. They may not grow in the deep of the forest though. Still, some recognizable fruits and veg can be found even there, although not everything they encountered may have been recognized as food by them perhaps. But seeing this guide carry so much stuff and hiking for 3 days on backtrails, and primarily relying on the fruits and food he finds in the jungle, we would have to assume that there has to be more than just a little bit of food in there. Great link. So James Miller mentions banana plants on the Pianista trail, as well as Xanthosoma sagittifolium, tayer, which is cultivated in Panama for its edible roots, was also growing close to the path. Its leaves can also be eaten. But deep in the mountains, going up north, there are surely more fruits and such to be found."

Power-Pixie wrote: "During one incident H. "rages at a neighbour about something that happened with a dog. He is really fired up by rage and even picks up a long sharp machete from the house to make death threats at the neighbour" His son isn't an angel from this description. He seems beligerant and quick of temper, but picking up a machete seems like the normal thing to do in that region, if one has a machete. NickyAbroad blogged: 'We arrived at the top near Cerro Punto, where F’s son was waiting and extremely disgruntled at having had to wait for an hour for us because we were late'. He does seem to have a quick temper and seems to not have much of a diplomatic approach to clients or neighbors. I wonder if he or guide F. threatened Eileen at the farm?"

Me: "There is another section in the book, I didn't include it as it is about some strangers on the road in Boquete, but the couple had some altercation when driving, something to do with not letting the other pass by during slow driving traffic, and these men got so angry that they chased Nina and Andy through the mountains and almost off the road. Maybe it is just normal to act so hot headed there? For some people. But this H. anecdote does match with the other descrptions of him as being very aggressive, easy to trigger, moody and some there say he is worse than that. You see him surrounded by beautiful girls, playing the gangster also often, on his socials. I still don't understand what Eileen was doing there on that farm on Wednesday afternoon, when she was supposed to be the only person present at Spanish by the River. She left her post around 8:00 AM already to look for Kris and Lisanne, and then also left the school closed all afternoon? She had only arrived in Boquete that Saturday March 28th, she didn't know the tour guide beforehand, we assume?" "Also,  F. may have loved the position of influence he has as thé tour guide, with these athletic foreign tourists pretty much powerless on hís terrain, in his mountains? Maybe that powerplay was some sexual fantasy of him, although this all is just Nina's version of events of course. But he does sound aware of his position in her version of events and perhaps looking for thrills. Selfish to some degree for sure, also towards his wife. In a later interview F sounded depressed and sad about his wife's passing away. Maybe he started to miss her and reflect a bit by then? Angelica did not appear to accompany her husband on his hikes. was also sickly already then, she may not have been able to hike as Nina also describes that F is fit as a fiddle, and she herself couldn't keep up with him and the other tourists either and they had to wait for her at times." 

Power-Pixie wrote: "Other than sympathy what else would Angelica gain from confiding in Nina or Andy? Money? Nina and Andy were trying to start their business and from the sound of it weren't exactly rolling in the dough." "Also, regarding the pink notebook, 'He writes down all the details of his tourists in a pink notebook' - I wonder what clues we could have received from his notes about his whereabouts for March 31 and April 1? I wonder if he noted down Kris and Lisanne in there somewhere for their Volcan Baru tour?'

Me: "Good point.. Wished that was investigated. At the end of the day, anything and everything Nina wrote can be challenged because we just don't know if she tells the truth or perhaps embellishes stuff. To me, the book read like sincere diary entries. I have written diaries myself since I was 8 years old and these ones sound sincere to me, but that doesn't mean that she didn't edit stuff to make for a more compelling story, perhaps. Indeed, why would Angelica tell Andy this? Perhaps because they stayed so long already there and they got along and chatted more often or had tea together. maybe she felt desperate and needed to vent and felt more safe with a non-local, someone from abroad who would also leave again?"